WORK has begun on the next stage of Hayle's pioneering scheme to harvest electricity from the sea with the construction of an onshore electricity sub-station.

The Wave Hub will create the world's largest test site for wave energy devices by installing a seabed socket 10 miles offshore.

Drilling underneath Harvey's Towans was completed last month with a 200-metre cable fed through the dunes.

A subsea cable will eventually be fed ashore from the hub, linked to onshore cabling, and connected to the new sub-station, which will occupy part of the former coal-fired power station site.

Guy Lavender, Wave Hub general manager, said: "This next chapter is a crucial part of the onshore infrastructure we are building at Hayle.

"Wave Hub's grid connectivity is part of what makes it so attractive to the marine energy industry."

Energy revolution

The £42 million project, developed by the South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA), is expected to place West Cornwall at the centre of a renewable energy revolution.

The six-month scheme will include the installation of more than £1 million of electrical equipment, including a monitoring system to measure how much power the devices produce.

It is funded with £12.5 million from the SWRDA, £20 million from the European Regional Development Fund Convergence Programme and £9.5 million from the UK government. It should be completed in the autumn with the first wave devices expected to be deployed in 2011.

An independent economic impact assessment has calculated that Wave Hub could create 1,800 jobs and inject £560 million into the UK economy over 25 years with 1,000 of these jobs and £332 million generated in the South West.